Author
Topic: Online survey-please help! (Read 2608 times)

I am currently working on my Master thesis. The topic of my thesis is: The linguistic creaitivity of LOLspeak and Textspeak.

My topic area is the language of the Internet with a focus on the linguistic issues of Textspeak and LOLspeak. In particular, I examine the effects of character limitations on linguistic choices in each genre.

Concerning the empirical part of my thesis, I would like to create my own corpora by collecting real examples of SMS messages. I am planning to collect a sample of private text messages of native speakers of English, because native speakers of English are more likely to use non-standard English, so we can predict that they are more sensitive to the nuances of the language style characteristics of Textspeak.

I have already designed a questionnaire in which I ask participants to share their real SMS messages and additionally ask for sociolinguistic information, such as gender, age, nationality, the purpose of the message, the intended recipient of the message, and the participants’ frequency of texting.

I would like to invite all native speakers of English to participate in my project. I assure the anonymity of individual text messages and also agree to thank those participants who wish to reveal their real names, in the acknowledgements of my thesis.